He’s delicious and has a horrid grip on me. I don’t like him right now. At all.
“You made it,” he says.
“Did you doubt me?”
“Never.”
Ah. Good to know his one-worded answers will be the death of me. What is it with this man and my independent womanhood? It’s like he steps from his lair of villainy and my body waves the white flag, giving up the good fight, and begs him to take us.
Stay professional. He set the stage. Respect it.
I drop my bag and place my hands on my hips. “Well, I’m going to get started.”
“I’d like to help.”
I lift one brow. “Why?”
Ryder hesitates. “I always liked watching your brain work.”
I’m either going to murder him or kiss him. What is he thinking talking like this? He’s the one who made it clear where he stood.
But I know better. I know Ryder front and back, left and right.
This is the guy who sets up shop in dark crevices of his mind. Those dreary places where he tells himself he’s not worth a whole lot and it would be better to face life without too many attachments.
Took a little bit to break him of those thoughts. Separated for so long, I wonder if he went back a few steps.
I know there is no one who builds walls like Ryder. He always has. I took a bit of pride knowing I broke through them once. Even before Drake. Ryder let me see the most vulnerable moments. The trick is to get him one on one, in a place where he feels free, like for example, an athletic house he’s helping to create. In those places, the soft, gentle, wonderful pieces of the guy I wanted forever start to bleed through.
“Okay,” I say softly. “Well, I think we should start first by categorizing what equipment we have, then we’ll block out a basic plan on where we want everything to go for optimal access and efficiency.”
“Sounds good.”
“Is anyone else coming?”
Ryder shakes his head. “Not today. It’s just us.”
I cover the disquiet with a stiff smile, but inside, my heart is tap-dancing against my ribs. Turns out, I’m not defective, everything simply froze after Ryder left. Now, he’s here, and it’s as if something inside is beginning to thaw.
Ryder
I don’t knowhow long we’ve been here, but time has sort of become an insignificant thing anyway. Ava has a magic to her. She always has. No mistake, I’d forgotten—or allowed myself to forget—her ability to get me to embrace calmness.
For the last two hours, my shoulders have been at ease. My jaw isn’t sore from clenching. When we first began organizing and taking inventory on the supplies we had delivered, we skirted around each other with a heavy dose of awkward.
Until, bit by bit, the ice started chipping away. We started moving in a forgotten dance, almost knowing what the other planned to do before it was done.
Ava would point to a box, and before she said the room she wanted to put it in, I’d suggest the same space.
“Stop it.” She smacks my shoulder, grinning. “You’re stealing the thunder of my brilliance.”
“Sorry. Great minds.”
She smiles and whispers the same, “Great minds.”
My chest squeezes as a memory of blankets and beers we stole from my parents’ fridge, driving out to the empty field, and looking at the stars, fills my head…
The campground near the random slope in the center of the field had become our place. Once we’d come here the first time, the way we’d kissed and touched, it was hard to think of anything else but coming back again and again.
